In the Courtyard
by Kali Cephirot
Summary: Series of drabbles, ficlets and less than 500 words long stories I've written. Autoconclussive. Several pairings, may include yuri, yaoi, het and gen. Rating goes from K to M.
1. break your throne xxxx FakirxMytho

**break your throne.**

Fakir thinks, we'll leave. It's the one reason he joins the Academy, the one reason to show Mytho to the world. It's not unheard for the best students to be taken into prestigious ballet companies all over the world, for them never to return to Kinkan.

Fakir makes sure that everyone, even the teachers, fall a little in love with the careful grace of the heartless prince, just enough that they don't notice the way his eyes are empty, just focus on the way his dancing breaks your heart. Even like this, Mytho is a flame that attracts others to him, and Fakir decides to use it, and he becomes the shadow of those careful steps.

And when they are all alone, he kneels in front of Mytho, wraps bandages around his ankles, helps him undress, does his best not to be moved by the frailty of his shoulders, by how easy it would be to crush him and watch him crumble apart. Mytho moves when and how Fakir tells him to, and through the sick feeling of such a proud prince is reduced to a puppet, something dark and heavy stirs in Fakir's stomach, for all that he does his best to ignore it.

It's not important, Fakir tells himself. Mytho sleeps when he tells him to do so, and as long as that doesn't change, he can keep him safe. It will all be worthy, he thinks, for when the two of them can break free of a story that wants to kill them both.


	2. find myself drawn to youxxxx FakirxMytho

**but I find myself drawn to you.**

Once, he gets as close to killing Mytho as to press the dagger against his throat, while Mytho is sleeping.

Fakir thinks this would be the best way to go. It's not because of _-- claws tearing at his skin and beaks plucking his eyes out and pain so much pain --_ his destiny, but because that would save everyone in town. Without the Prince, the Crow would remain trapped forever, and that's the best they can hope with that kind of story. And yes, Mytho would die, but he is already risking his life in vain, over and over. The fool would probably choose that if he could make the choice, anyway.

Fakir presses the dagger against Mytho's throat again. He'll make it quick, Fakir thinks. Mytho will bleed out and then... then the knight will have done something, even if it was betraying his lord. Betraying Mytho.

The dagger draws a red line upon Mytho's white, white skin and then the Prince opens languid golden eyes, looking at him.

"Fakir...?"

Fakir drops the knife, nausea twisting deep inside of him, and he feels his eyes sting and then he just falls down to his knees, wraps his arms around Mytho's waist, his face against his chest, listening to the silence there.

Mytho does nothing, but it's a little comforting, to Fakir, knowing that Mytho doesn't understand why he's trembling.


	3. Five times Fakir cries

**Five times Fakir cried.**

1. Charon always holds him, those first few months after his parents die, when the nightmares are so terrible he screams himself raw.

2. "You idiot!" He calls Mytho, shaking his shoulders, scared and angry and upset when he feels his eyes stinging. "You could have died!"

Mytho doesn't say anything, just looks at him with wide, empty eyes, and he doesn't do a thing as Fakir cries against him, feeling so damn useless...

3. It's a stupid thing to cry for: he'll still be able to walk, even without a cane. It's just dancing what he won't be able to do anymore. Ahiru nuzzles against him and Fakir holds her tight, his leg both itching and hurting inside the cast.

4. She's tiny and beautiful and perfect and Fakir is terrified he'll drop her. Mytho-- Siegrfied beams too, just like Rue and Ahiru do, and he watches the new Princess, Bianca, and doesn't do a thing as he feels himself cry.

5. Wild ducks live around twenty years: Ahiru has lasted over twenty five, and Fakir knows that she has done so only because of him, not wanting to leave him alone.

So one day before the sunrise he picks her up and walks them towards her pond, and with his legs in the water he tells her their story, feeling the magic he can thread through his words.

He holds her small, warm body against his chest and looks as the dawn starts and he keeps on talking about freedom and love and happily ever after, and though she's silent, Fakir thinks that he can almost feel the moment in which her heart stops.

It's the moment his heart breaks down.


	4. Five times Fakir falls in love

**Five times Fakir fell in love.**

1. He was five and Rachael was the prettiest woman he had ever met. He told Charon that when he grew up, he was going to marry her, and Charon had laughed, warm and kind and said that he hoped he was invited to the wedding.

2. He's seven when he meets the Prince and he doesn't understand the way his chest aches at the same time that it feels free. Even when the Prince never smiles, Fakir feels happy just to be by his side.

3. Ahiru IS an idiot and stupid and stubborn and Fakir often just misses the way his life used to be calm and certain before she stumbled her way into his life, both as a duck, as Tutu and as a girl.

And yet she feels so fragile in his arms, so tiny and precious that he wishes, oh how he wishes that he could be her knight.

4. The Prince is everything that the stories promised and more: beloved liege and close friend and the first person he gave his heart too. Siegfried hugs him close when hey say goodbye, and when the Prince whispers an 'I love you as well', Fakir knows he doesn't have to say anything at all.

5. Three years after the end, Fakir picks up his pen, Ahiru sleeping in her basket by the side of the bed.

Fakir doesn't try to write her as a human because the story never came to him and he is much more respectful of his gift than Drosselmeyer - or Autor - ever was. Instead he writes a simple, every day story: a boy and a girl that fell in love when they were young and foolish, who were broken apart for a while but since their love was true, they were reunited again, and there was no happily ever after, at least not in the true fashion of fairytales, but they remained together til the end of their lives.

Before he even puts his pen down, suddenly he hears a thud and there on the floor, on the broken remains of a basket, naked and older and surrounded by feathers, Ahiru looks at him, human once more, as startled as he feels.


	5. lost my sense of time xxxx RuexMytho

**oh that starry night, lost my sense of time**

It's been nine years, she thinks, since the first time she met Mytho. Her face is different, her voice, her body, and yet the Prince remains the same.

Kraehe curls close to Mytho, whispers a kiss against the quiet-beat of his neck and closes her eyes, tight. Mytho's eyes are open upon the night, but they reflect no light, just like his body reflects no sign at all.

"I'll make you mine," Kraehe promises, softly. "Please, be mine."

Mytho doesn't answer, doesn't move. Kraehe waits.


	6. to dance around the fire xxxx RuexAhiru

**to dance around the fire.**

"Honestly, you're hopeless," Rue sighs, shakes her head. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, soft curls around her face and Ahiru just has to stare for a moment.

"Huh?"

"You're too tense to dance like that," Rue clicks her tongue, swishes her long skirt and then, before Ahiru can properly wrap her mind around anything, Rue is taking her hand in hers, her other hand on her waist and she's drawing her close.

Ahiru blushes as hard as she does with Mytho, and she looks at Rue's dark eyes that are way, way too close suddenly.

"W-wha-wha-wha--!"

"Follow my lead, " Rue says before pressing forward, and Ahiru tries her best not to just crash, so she puts her other hand on Rue's shoulder. "And you won't make a fool of yourself. Perhaps."

She's too startled to complain, so Ahiru just nods several times in a row, and follows Rue's waltz.


	7. for now xxxx FakirxMytho

**For Now**

He's eleven, still shorter than Mytho. Not for long, he thinks, but for now Mytho still has two inches on him, but Fakir refuses to think too much about that, thinking that it's just for now. Soon he'll be taller, stronger, and he'll be the knight Mytho needs.

But at the moment he sends Mytho's fans away with a sneer, closes the blinds of the classroom and he puts on toe shoes, because Mytho does have to practice but he doesn't trust any of those stupid girls to not try anything weird with Mytho. This won't last, he knows, and he'll have to think of something else, but for now it does.

So there's no music, but Fakir counts and on three he's on his toes and Mytho is holding him, helping him. He knows the steps the danseuse would do and he follows them carefully, not thinking of how this would look. Mytho thinks nothing of this even though he likes dancing (as much as he likes anything anyway) and Fakir tells himself they need to do this. They have to get away from Gold Crown, and this is the only way he knows how to do so.

So he bends low, Mytho's hands on his waist, and then his hands take his as he helps him up. They are suddenly too close as he bends his back and Mytho's arm keeps around his waist to help him up, but Mytho seems too close, too familiar, and Fakir _does_ have a heart, a treacherous heart that thumps too loudly when Mytho is so close, even though he means nothing to Mytho.

He messes up: he tenses, losing his balance, and he makes them both fall.

"Stupid," he says, mostly to himself.

"I'm sorry, Fakir" Mytho says, toneless, simply because he has called him that a number of times and by now he knows what to answer, even if he's not sorry because he can't feel sorry.

Fakir glares, looks away, doesn't bother telling him it wasn't him he was calling 'stupid'. He just stands up and tells Mytho they're doing it again.


End file.
